


the girls fought for guts

by Neffectual



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Robincest, Stephanie Brown is Robin, boy's club, stephanie brown was robin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 16:49:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4487211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephanie Brown was Robin. She doesn't know why everyone else seems to have forgotten this - but she isn't letting go of the mantle that easily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the girls fought for guts

**Author's Note:**

> Feeling gloomy and abandoned. Title from a (slighly edited) lyrics from 'Witch of Pittenwheem' by Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo.
> 
> I have strong feelings about Steph as Robin, which may be because I'm a Stephanie myself.

She isn’t stupid, no matter what the birdbrain boys in their secret little cave might think; she wouldn’t have survived everything she has if that were the case. She watches their movements night after night, racing across the rooftops under the cameras she planted months ago, which none of them have noticed, and she wishes she could be a part of that smooth operation once more. It was exhilarating, wearing the cape, feeling the air whoosh underneath her when the grapple hooked just right, being the boy wonder whilst being all girl, blonde hair flowing out while her laughing eyes were hidden behind the mask. 

Unlike the boys, she had to move faster to stop from being identified, but she flew with Batman just like all the others, she was quick-footed and quicker-witted, trading wisecracks and blows just like they do. But when Tim came back, they cut her out as quickly as they could – and she died. She died, and now they carry on like she was never there; no memorial case like Jason still has, for all that he runs alongside them. 

 

When Stephanie Brown came back, there was no welcome party, no moist-eyed Bruce accepting her back into the fold, no handshake from Dick, and Damian just gave her a curious once-over before dismissing her as unimportant. Jason had sneered, and Tim had… Tim had just blinked at her, before Jason put a hand on the small of his back and smirked. She had left the cave, shaking with anger, shaking with rage, hands clenched into fists. This was what she got, after she’d spent months working out, months getting herself back into shape to be Robin? The tears fell silently, and she refused to acknowledge them, putting her hood up and disappearing into the maze of alleyways she knows so well. 

In the darkness, there, she puts her back to the wall and lets the sobs wrack her body. They’d been kind, that was the worst of it, kind as Bruce explained to her that there were five of them, now, and that between the lot of them, they could handle Gotham’s streets. Dick had even chimed in that he’d heard she was doing well in college. They had known she was back, and no one had come to her.

 

She remembers what it was like when she was Spoiler and Tim was Robin, how the armoured jock had given her a few issues the first time they’d fucked on the rooftops, Tim’s slim, lightly muscled frame beneath her as he writhed, virginal and so sweet, so easy for her in all the best ways, her hands tangled in his hair as her hips rose and fell. She’d left marks everywhere she could, known the rest of the Bats would see them when he took the suit off, and she hadn’t cared. 

Yes, she’d been stupid, she could admit that now, she had been a stupid teenager – but she’s pretty sure that being pregnant and then being dead shook that out of her. And she carried the cape pretty well when Tim was gone; Bruce certainly had no complaints, but now she’s out of the family, no room for a bubbly blonde among so many scowling dark-haired boys, their blue eyes too bright. Before, she had made her own costume and taken her own routes onto the streets, but Bruce knows her fighting style now, and she knows she could never take on all five of them at once. They have the power to keep her in the dark, like a good little civilian, but Steph has never been one to take to being side-lined gracefully.

 

She goes back, time and time again, not listening to the no, ignoring the way Batman scowls at her from beneath the cowl when he sees her curled up in the big leather chair in front of the screens, co-ordinating their movements on the cameras and pinpointing weaknesses. She makes lists, reviews fighting styles, does inventory and links her own cameras into the system, which she thinks is showing an awful lot of trust, but Bruce just looks at her like she’s one of the bats in the roof. 

She assumes it’s not the same way that he looked at Jason, caught taking the wheels off the Batmobile, assumes it isn’t the way he looked at Tim when he found the stash of photos, or even the way he looked at Damian upon finding out he’d sired a child. Perhaps it’s his age, she charitably allows; perhaps he thinks girls are weaker, to be protected, or perhaps he worries about what happened to Barbara, but he lets Cass go out every night and says nothing to her.

 

It’s an easy night, and she’s watching the cameras from home, which means she can check the ones in the cave as well, taking advantage of her time in there to cover all her angles. Tim and Jason get in first, Red Hood and Red Robin, and Tim’s uniform is half off when Jason kisses him, the domino still on, hands roaming. She should look away, find another feed, or go to bed, but she keeps watching, seeing her ex-boyfriend’s new scars revealed by a man who should be dead, but isn’t, just like her. When Dick and Damian get in, the two already in the cave don’t stop, but Jason reaches out and grabs Nightwing by the suit, pulling him and kissing him instead, whilst Tim grinds on one thick thigh. Damian makes for Tim, who easily disables the catches on the tunic, like he never forgot what it was like to wear it, or how she used to get him out of it without tripping the alarms or electrical charges.

Her breath is caught in her throat, her pulse beating wildly as she watches them; lovers, brothers, Bats. Bruce sidesteps the half-naked bundle of Robins when he gets in, but grins when Dick makes a beckoning gesture, and shakes his head. None of the others seem to notice or care, and she wonders if they’ve wanted to do this every night after patrol, but her presence has stopped them. She closes her eyes, blindly gropes for the monitor, and switches it off. There are some ways she cannot be a part of this family, and she doesn’t need to see exactly what those are.

 

They let her back as Batgirl, eventually, which is as good as saying ‘I suppose you’ll do’ once Cass leaves. She doesn’t ever ask about their sex lives, or who shares which of the big beds upstairs, she endures Damian’s taunts of ‘Fatgirl’ instead of her name or title, and copes with the fact that Tim never looks at her anymore. She catches pity in Jason’s eyes, and spends her next sparring session beating seven kinds of hell out of him in retaliation, until the pity is replaced with respect and a slight wince whenever he looks at her. If she cannot be loved, or wanted, or even liked, then respect and a little fear is good enough, because it keeps them away from her for other reasons. Dick seems to think of her as a stupid teenager, and proves that he, himself, has never grown up by leaving condoms on top of her uniform. 

She storms into Bruce’s bedroom, ignoring the two of them entwined, and rages at him for that. She doesn’t know where her daughter ended up, thought that would be better, and there’s not a day she doesn’t wish there had been different circumstances – but throwing it in her face like that is crass and childish. She walks out again without letting either of them speak, and leaves the door wide open as a deliberate slight. Once she’s back in the cave, she calmly takes her bike out of the garage, leaving for home. Tim puts his hand on her shoulder and she nerve strikes him, on instinct, before Damian throws a few insults around and she throws a few punches. She peels out of the cave, determined to leave the family she fought so hard to get back into.

 

She worries that they won’t come back for her, that they won’t notice she’s gone, or will carry on just fine without what they’re doubtlessly considering an emotional woman. Tim is the first to visit her, in street clothes, leaving flowers and kissing her cheek, Jason tagging along and nodding at her. He still respects her, at least, and he’ll talk to Tim about it, she knows. The dead kids have to stick together, and Jason – for all his shitty behaviour – has honour which runs far deeper than the rest of the Bats. Damian is next, but his apology is just like him; manipulative and shallow. He brings ice cream, though, and doesn’t mention the twelve pounds she’s lost in muscle mass since giving up the cape. He likes her cats, and it’s hard to dislike him when he’s just a teenager on her sofa, eating Phish Food and making cutting comments at Project Runway.

Bruce and Dick come together, and she considers closing the door on them, just out of spite, but Dick looks tired, old, like he’s been worrying about this for a while, and Bruce looks… scared. He says something about loss, like she’d been out of his reach, and Dick reaches for her, imploringly. It’s easy to fall into his arms again, like the charmer he always was, and to let Bruce cup her chin with a hand which seems smaller without the gauntlets. It’s easy to come back, it always has been, but she wonders how many times they can push her away before she stops being so willing to forgive.

 

They have family nights once a week – non-costumed family nights, that is – and while Bruce doesn’t normally show, the others make room for her on the couch and let her pick the movie once in a while. Damian curls up as her little spoon, no matter that he’s nearly too tall to do that, and Dick nestles in with his head on her hip, where she can stroke his hair lazily. Jason and Tim share the other couch, because Jay kicks, but sometimes she joins them and lets her boys argue around her, one arm each on her waist. At the end of the night, they go off to bedrooms shared and separate, and she gets back on her bike and heads home to her own space and her cats. It isn’t perfect, and maybe it isn’t what she wants from them, isn’t scratching all the itches a woman has when she’s on her own – but it’s closer than she thought she could get a year ago.

They threw her away, but she clawed back stronger and better, until they could no longer say no, because it hurts the most when we watch ourselves being left behind, and she didn't know what to do to find her place among them again. They’re all the family she has, and some days, she doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. All she knows is that, capes and all, she wouldn’t ever want to be on the outside again. She thinks, if she’s lucky, she’ll never have to.


End file.
